Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Sam, from beyond the sidewalk (blue)

every summer, i would wait impatiently, on the painted wood stoop, off the front of the porch, at 11:32 each day for the white truck, the letters M-A-I-L, stenciled in blue down the side. our mail man's name was Mr. Hodgkins, and i was pretty sure that when he would round the corner and see me, he would intentionally slow down, because i know that Mr. Wilson was too busy fussing at that cat to have a conversation with him.

Mr. Hodgkins always wanted to know how my day was and how my family was doing, dragging out the moments before handing me a bundle of junk addressed to my parents. on special days though, he would call me back, after i turned away, to hand me the treasure i was seeking, a postcard from Sam. grabbing it, i would run, clomping up the stairs, across the porch into the house, leaving Mr. Hodgkins to neatly stack the mail i had dropped across the sidewalk in my haste and put it in the mailbox, with a chuckle.

arriving in my room, i would sit in the hard wood chair at the desk in the corner, placing the postcard in the middle, so that the magic could begin. the brilliant picture on the front would expand at the edges to fill my room, carrying with it the scent of whatever exotic location Sam happened to be visiting that month; beaches of Morocco, ruins in Italy, jungles in Peru.

large leafy plants would erupt from the corners of my room, the far wall melting into crystal blue oceans. my bed became moss covered rocks, embedded in the sun warmed sands of my floor. birds would call from the canopies of trees, where salamanders clung to the bark, their eyes turned to follow me.

i would walk around these scenes, thrilling in new tastes, mesmerised by the animals that walked slowly passed me. the chatter of languages that i could not understand danced in the air, beautiful to my ear. after what seemed like hours, i would turn the card over to read his words, which added textures, bringing these new places even more into focus. he would always end with Your Friend, Sam.

at night, i would rub the postmark with my stubby child fingers, like a genie lamp, making a wish to awake in some far off land, as i drifted off to sleep, clutching the card to my chest. as morning light spilled through soft cotton curtains, i would always awake to the same tousled covers, in same room, in the same four street neighborhood and poke my head out the window, just in time for Mrs. Lilly to steal another part of my soul. click~whir.

it never bothered me that the postcards were addressed to some guy named Tom, i knew they must be for me, a boy in exile, somewhere in suburbia. one day, i would meet Sam, somewhere on the outside, and tell him how each summer he inspired my escape, through little glimpses of life beyond the sidewalk, delivered in a white truck, the letters M-A-I-L, stenciled in blue.

100 comments:

dude, your writing about being a boy, with imagination exploding and wanderlusting reminds me of ray bradbury. however, it's uniquely your marvelous voice. i mean, when you describe a boy in his room and the edges of the postcard expanding and your room coming alive, you stir the little boy inside me. so good.

Love the imagery...my favorite, though, was: "large leafy plants would erupt from the corners of my room, the far wall melting into crystal blue oceans." So tropical and magical. I can just see a little boy's imagination taking him there!

I love how you connect your stories. And your descriptions are just plain amazing. My favorite line:...so that the magic could begin. the brilliant picture on the front would expand at the edges to fill my room, carrying with it the scent of whatever exotic location. I felt like I could see into his imagination.

I loved the tie-ins of Mr. Wilson and Mrs. Lily (who never misses a photo op, does she?) and I could see it all so clearly and I loved the boy's excitement for the cards and what they represented to him. This neighborhood is full of intrigue, Brian.

Oh, it's sad they weren't really meant for him and what of the little boy who should be getting them and wasn't? I guess "you don't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need". Beautiful, Brian.

For me, it is the M-A-I-L truck that you write about that sparks wonder in me. I have always loved the mailbox and have written about it on my blog too. In fact, doing my job this summer has allowed me to see so many different mailboxes. I plan a post in the next few days, as soon as everything settles down. In the meantime, keep traveling via those postcards. (I also have a postcard collection. I live vicariously through my friends who travel and send me cards.)

As an untravelled child growing up in 1950's pre-television Australia,anything beyond the school bus run and short distance to immediate family seemed forever unobtainable.You've captured that feeling so well!

Ah I remember the joys of postcards. Fortunately they were addressed to me. Lovey reminiscences and depiction of a child's imagination. I'm trying to visualise cafes and the smell of baguettes and coffee. Doesn't come as easily to an adult.

I do not know why that saying "Calgon take me away" comes to my mind, but it does. I think those commercials were supposed to do the same thing as these postcards do.

Our mailbox is in the middle of the block and so we rarely have ever seen our mailperson. When the girls lived here they would run down to the mailbox and pick up the mail every day. Now two weeks can pass before I bother to go down there and clean the box out. It is usually just junk and bills and since I pay my bills through the bank, I rarely even need to see the bills.

It is like having a mailbox at an apartment complex only it is for houses. The only bad thing is that our mailpersons always get our mail mixed up and put into the wrong boxes. It would have been cool to receive a postcard like that.

Great story and show how we all need our imaginations to continue even as an adult. That is why I like to watch the Travel Channel sometimes. Even though you are not there, at least you can pretend your are.

poor Tom but lucky you! my uncle was in the merchant marine when I was young and he sent us post cards, strange money & even stranger tokens from all over the world. very exotic at the time because travel was limited to shipboard (expensive) and post-war, Fifties era plane travel (also expensive).

This is an amazing piece of writing, Brian and so endearingly true; the words of others can transport us to far off lands and strengthen our desire to visit them. All novels, after all, are only escapes. And the ending was sharp and brilliant, as ever. Wishing you well,

Where the wild things are....lovely writing today. You reminded me of my childhood. We lived further out than all of my friends, so trips to town weren't that frequent and I had to live vicariously through books. I was Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Margaret in Judy Blume's famous book, then Anne of Green Gables, and even Nancy Drew...I still love to read, lately a lot of self help but I'm getting ready to go on vacation and I am long overdue for some good fiction.....

I think most of us of a certain age remember the thrill of receiving personal mail like this. But even now, in this electronic age, reaching out from suburbia to people in parts unknown is exciting. I'm sure it's a big reason why we all enjoy blogging so much: living vicariously through the imaginations and experiences of others!

what a nice post! As a kid, I had a great uncle who was in the merchant marines and would send post cards from places like Vietnam and Thailand... I only meet the man, my grandmother's brother, a couple of times, but he had no family so he sent cards to us... I wonder what happened to them.

This was really wonderful, Brian - but I'm stuck in a groove with a mailman who would give you someone else's mail. I have a fairness gene in me that says, "Whoa on up there, cowboy! You just can't do that!"

Taking me into magical childhood moments -- fantastic! But I can't help but wonder about Tom waiting for his postcards, and a mailman who would steal the mail (or was it his own mail?) But then, if Tom is someone else, did his friendship with Sam survive the missing postcards?

I had a couple of pen pals when I was a kid. I looked forward to their Par Avion onion skin letters. I was a kid growing up in Tidewater, VA and England seemed like a much more sophisticated and exciting place than where I lived. I don't know if I saved those old letters but they were from a fellow named Ian. And we had a back stoop too.

Hey you know that poem about me will be spoken word eventually on my offical poetry site www.shoelessboywonder.com but that will be a little ways down the line. Great poetry by they as is to be expected.

I LOVE IT! That was me as a child, only instead of post cards, it was Harper Lee, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. I would stay up so late as a child getting lost in the places sometimes more than the stories. Wonderful.

I love love this post Brian! I understand how the little boy felt with these postcards I know the feeling of that dreaming ... I wonder though how felt Tom not receiving these cards ... thank you for your kind comment Brian, unfortunately blogger did swallow it and did not let me publish :-(